Education

The European Year of Cultural Heritage was not an expert only year. A strong focus was set on reaching out to children and young adult, the “heirs of our heritage”. “How can young people be inspired by Europe’s cultural heritage? How do you let them participate and participate? How can we build lasting relationships?” were key questions.

Through participation and education, children and young adults exchanged ideas across borders, developed their own questions and finally found themselves able to become ambassadors of European cultural heritage. The presentation of the content of the European Year of Cultural Heritage to a young audience was a special interest of SHARING HERITAGE, a large number of events and initiatives were specifically designed to address them .

To support projects developing formats and contents for a young audience, the German Cultural Heritage Committee developed several expert documents. The German texts can be found here.

An overview of recommendations mentioned in the papers:

an emphasis on target-group-oriented investigation of the (built) cultural heritage with the aim of discovering European connections in local cultural heritage.

Children and youth interact directly with cultural heritage and enter into a dialogue (if possible, an intercultural dialogue).

Participatory methods and low-threshold access enable children and youth to develop their own lines of enquiry.

Activities are closely related to their daily life and experiences and appropriately incorporate digital technologies in the project implementation, for example using digital communication formats (such as online BarCamps) or digital tools (such as apps).

Activities should be directed in particular at school-aged children and young people (6–18 years), should be sensitive to diversity and follow the principles of inclusion.

Activities may also be directed at young people’s teachers, parents and accompanying persons (for example in the form of subject-specific and didactic courses/workshops and teaching materials).

Suitable cooperation partners should be involved in planning and carrying out activities in order to draw on subject-specific, pedagogical and if necessary technical skills.

Please find below project examples that have aspects focussing on the Young Heirs: